Google Maps flubs our city's name

When filling out forms online, you often enter address information. In most instances, the choice for state includes the postal abbreviations for the states, and the District of Columbia is included in alphabetical order after Delaware and before Florida.

Unfortunately, the "state" we live in is sometimes listed as "Washington, D.C.," so one finds DC in alphabetical order after Washington and before West Virginia. When coupled with the name in the city field (Washington), this leads to an address in "Washington, Washington D.C.," which looks, sounds, and is ridiculous.

It appears that sometime in the last few weeks, Google Maps has fallen into a similar trap. Typing "Washington" into the search field when first in Google Maps, one sees the result below:

As you can see, they're labeling our city as "Washington D.C., DC." It's pretty silly.

Here's another example.

And finally, any address that you select (like the White House in this example) has "Washington D.C., DC" appended to the street address. Google needs to fix this, so the city name is only rendered as "Washington," and the state abbreviation is "DC." The current redundancy doesn't make sense.

Washington Post writers need to spend more time with maps

Map from Google Maps

(This post has been updated. See below the jump.)

There is no Oak Street in Trinidad. There is an Oates Street. A simple glance at a map of the neighborhood proves that in less than a minute. Why can't our city's largest newspaper invest that time and effort when writing stories about DC?

Over the last couple days, I've complained to many friends and acquaintances that there has been very little coverage of the Ward 5 race in DC's influential newspapers and TV stations. All the oxygen has been sucked out of the room, so to speak, by the mayoral race, and to a much lesser extent, the council chairman's race.

Even the smaller newspapers have dedicated little to this important political scramble. Capital Community News used to publish a paper called DC North which covered news across Ward 5. In March of this year, they rebranded the paper MidCity DC, pulling back coverage of Ward 5 to the Bloomingdale neighborhood, no longer covering the rest of the ward.

The Washington Post published a story about the Ward 5 race on their website last night, and it's in the print version of today's Metro section. But they didn't take the time to do some basic geographic fact-checking. Ann E. Marimow wrote the story, with contributions from Nikita Stewart, but the two apparently didn't run the story by a fact-checking staff member to make sure they got the details right.

The story paints a picture of the incumbent, Harry Thomas Jr., by mentioning parts of the ward where he grew up. One of those places was his grandmother's house in Trinidad, which they claim was on "Oak Street." Click on the Trinidad map above—there is no Oak Street, there is an Oates Street. Sure, it's a little detail, but little details are the things we expect professional journalists to get right. Otherwise, us crazy bloggers might as well be your only source of news, with our supposed lack of fact-checking, lack of editors, and Cheeto-stained fingers.

It's not the first time the paper has expressed a lack of geographic knowledge about DC. Last month, I wrote about the Post's tendency to make broad generalizations regarding the city's quadrants. A lack of understanding regarding Northeast and Northwest, and how Ward 5 relates to the two, is on display in today's story as well.

Here's the article's first sentence:

Ask residents of the District's Northeast neighborhoods about city government, and many are quick to say that they feel neglected, that Ward 5 has too often been a dumping ground for stinky trash transfer stations and unseemly X-rated clubs.

This makes it appear that Ward 5 and the Northeast quadrant of the city are co-extant. Northeast is much bigger than Ward 5 (it includes parts of wards 4, 6, and 7 as well) and Ward 5 isn't just in Northeast (Ward 5's Bloomingdale and Truxton Circle neighborhoods are both in Northwest).

These are simple things that could have been caught if run by someone familiar with the geography of the city. Find that person on your staff and make sure they get to weigh in on these things, Washington Post writers, because your natural advantage over us bloggers (a bigger audience and better news gathering infrastructure) doesn't mean much if you can't get your facts right.

Is it in Northeast, or Northwest?

Photo: 23am.com

This month, the Washington Post ran a couple stories about a homeless man who had formed a basketball league for children. Those stories were followed by a feel-good editorial in last Saturday's edition.

The articles state that the basketball league is located in and serves youth in "Northeast," even when all the photos that accompany the story show that league games are played in the park across the street from Big Bear Cafe at the corner of 1st Street and Florida Avenue NW.

One question I have is this: In which quadrant of the city does the Washington Post believe this story takes place? I realize this is a very pedantic question (many of the questions I ask are!), but there is a serious point behind this. While North and East Capitol Streets may be artificial lines placed on the landscape years ago, our society and media imbue those lines with enormous psychological meaning and power.

Mention "Northwest" or "Southeast" when talking about DC, and you'll often conjure images of rich versus poor, black versus white, and advantage versus disadvantage. A story about the poor in Northwest, or about a fancy restaurant in Northeast, is often framed as a juxtaposition, or an oddity, for those who are not intimately familiar with the city. Media outlets (especially the local television stations) often give only the city quadrant, instead of more specific neighborhood names, when reporting a story in the city.

So which is it, Northeast or Northwest? The Washington Post should publish a clarification.